[QUOTE=brickbacon]
Bullshit. You can argue that some of the rest of the stuff he said is “criticism” as well. Doesn’t mean any of it is constructive or useful in the context.
[/quote]
As already demonstrated, you don’t actually have a standard that criticism has to be at all constructive, “your class sucks” isn’t constructive criticsm by any stretch of the imagination. And if you want to deliberately ignore obnoxious criticisms of a teacher’s ability to teach were still criticisms of his ability to teach, that’s your willful ignorance.
[QUOTE=brickbacon]
The likelihood of your scenario being true is basically zero. To throw out any “possibility” in order to cast the villain in the best light is WRONG.
[/quote]
The likelihood is certainly not zero, you have no idea what the actual situation was, no idea at all, and a teacher mentioning his/her sexuality in class is certainly not impossible. As such, your claim that the chance is “basically zero” is bluster based on nothing other than ignorance. Nor is saying that we aren’t sure what the situation was, the act of casting the “villain” in the best light. Admitting uncertainty is hardly casting anybody in any light, it’s saying we don’t know.
[QUOTE=brickbacon]
You don’t think the teacher is the victim in this case?
[/quote]
And when another drive gave me the finger after they passed me on the right the other day, I was a victim! And when the cashier at the supermarket was rude to me, I was a victim! Whenever anybody on this message board has said unkind things about me, I was a victim!
Ayieeeeeee!
That you feel the need to dress up the events of someone having something rude said to them, as victimhood…
[QUOTE=brickbacon]
You seem to be suggesting that students should receive blanket anonymity for anything written on those forms.
[/quote]
Nope.
[QUOTE=brickbacon]
I assuming you mean when those laws were in place. If that is the case, then sure they would be justified if they wanted to enforce a law on the books.
[/quote]
Dio wants to treat students like soldiers, you want to teach universities like police officers. Universities’ have the job of educating people, not enforcing laws.
And your absurdity about voluntary codes of conduct ignores that A) you cannot waive your constitutional rights B) you are talking about crimes, not a university code of conduct C) as pointed out by me and ignored by you several times, the codes are absurdly general and open to interpretation.
You’re also talking out of both sides of your mouth when you say that universities should be in the business of enforcing laws, but that you’re not saying they should act as agents of the police. You can’t have it both ways. Either universities are in the job of Law Enforcement, or they’re not. Saying that a university has a right to enforce its own rules is a non sequitor to your claim that their facultay should be Law Enforcement Officers.
[QUOTE=brickbacon]
Are you trying to argue that people have a right to not follow “bad” laws?
[/quote]
…
I’ve been arguing that.
Yes. People should freely violate bad laws. The Jews should have done their best to smuggle their possessions out of Nazi Germany and flee with their lives. Gay people shouldn’t remain virgins because of sodomy laws. Etc, etc, etc…
[QUOTE=brickbacon]
If a student simply wrote, “I hated your class”, then we wouldn’t be talking now. Why would such a comment not be meaningful?
[/quote]
You want to handwave away a comment about how a teacher was “terrible at his job” by pointing to the rudeness surrounding it… and at the same time, you want to pretend that “I hated your class” is in any way meaningful feedback? What lessons, exactly, is a professor supposed to draw from such feedback? “I should do fewer things that anonymous student A might theoretically hate, if I knew what those things were.”
Someone doesn’t like a class, for unspecified reasons? That’s not a meaningful evaluation by any description.
[QUOTE=brickbacon]
That’s your opinion, and something that could be discussed in another thread.
[/quote]
No, that’s a fact, as determined by their implementation, legal challenges and reading comprehension. It’s also germane to the topic of this thread.
You are trying to dodge the subject.
[QUOTE=brickbacon]
Well what does their policy actually say? I haven’t seen it, and I’m not so sure that it promises to complete anonymity like you assume it does.
[/quote]
We were told that the interim Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences himself said that nothing could be done because the evaluations were anonymous. Nor do you need an actual written policy. Handing out course evaluations to which you don’t have to sign your name is a clear, stated policy of anonymity.
[QUOTE=brickbacon]
We are not having a discussion regarding the quality of their policies. We are discussing whether they should have found the kid who wrote the comments.
[/quote]
You don’t want to debate whether or not the policies make sense, are coherent or worth following, you just want to debate if the policies justified the university to violate its anonymity policy? It is a sign of the poverty of your argument that you actually claim the university should have acted a certain way because of its policies, without being willing to discussing the quality of those policies or acknowledge that the University could decide not to enforce bad policies and, instead, change them.
[QUOTE=brickbacon]
Bullshit. That is your own twisted interpretation. I will guarantee that student groups do not fall under the academic honesty policy. If you are arguing that it actually does, as opposed to that it could depending on how you parse the language in the handbook, then prove it.
[/quote]
You evidently do not understand the words “bullshit” “interpretation” or “twisted.”
Working in a study group is performing academic work with assistance. This is a simple matter of denotation. Is a study group a group of people who assist each other? Is the work they’re doing academic? Are they, thus, assisting each other in doing academic work? Does UGA’s academic honesty policy specifically prohibit students assisting each other in doing academic work?
When you find yourself arguing in the teeth of the facts and using absurd tactics like calling basic word-meaning a ‘twisted bullshit interpretation’, that’s a sign that your argument is poor enough to justify it getting food stamps.
With all that being said, you can guarantee whatever the heck you want, but your guarantees are worth precisely nothing. You might also have “guaranteed” that the “diversity” codes didn’t prohibit someone from flying the state flag. The fact that a minor functionary read them a certain way (due to them being overly broad and non-specific), would put paid to any assurances you could give. As you are neither a mind reader nor a prognosticator, you can not guarantee anything about how the rules will be applied.
You also fail to understand the very basic concept that “how you parse the language in the handbook” is how any rule is applied, every time, everywhere, in all of recorded human history and in the rest of time to come. That’s what it means to have a rule. Someone looks at it, looks at reality, and sees how the rule applies. That’s another massive hole in your already swiss-cheesed argument: if a student wrote about doing work with a study group and a teacher believed that violated the school’s policy, the school could go to draconian lengths to track her and her study group down, and to expose them all publicly.
And you say that it wouldn’t be a legitimate interpretation of the rule, but your own absurd argument already binds you to accepting its use and the punishments that are dished out because of it. That is, if some minor functionary decides that’s what how the rule should be enforced, you are logically bound to support something you believe is a ‘bullshit twisted interpretation’. If that isn’t blindly supporting authority regardless of its actual merits, nothing is.
[QUOTE=brickbacon]
Do you realize how chaotic the world would be if people decide they can selectively break laws they don’t agree with?
[/quote]
That’s some really breathtaking ignorance there, brick.
Just as an example, look at your local highway and its posted speed limit. While you’re at it, ask your average cop if he believes he should ticket someone who goes 2 miles over the limit. Or count the number of people who cross the street at some point other than the crosswalk.
Or look at how many people smoke pot.
People already break the laws they feel are bad laws, all the time, every day.
On the other hand, if observing the current world around you isn’t your bag, you can contemplate the moral position you’re taking when your “logic” says that Jews should have obeyed the Nuremberg Laws, headed off to the ghettos, and then not put up a fuss when it came time to get on the cattle cars.
It’s the law, after all. :rolleyes:
[QUOTE=brickbacon]
There are ways to fight back. Expose bad laws to the light of day, or challenge them in court.
[/quote]
“Onto the cattle cars, you can mail your petitions off to the courts after you’ve had a nice shower.”
What startling moral clarity you’ve got there, brick.
[QUOTE=brickbacon]
You can’t just decide not to follow laws because you think they are shitty.
[/quote]
“Gay people should never engage in sexual behavior in most states, as it is illegal. Until the laws are changed, they should just masturbate. If they engage in sodomy, they deserve to go to jail.”
Brilliant rules to live by, brick.
[QUOTE=brickbacon]
This goes double for a situation like this where a student chooses to attend a university, and agrees to these rues beforehand.
[/quote]
- You can’t sign away your constitutional rights.
- It’s a public university.
- A public university, funded by the tax payers, has no right making attendance mandatory on ill formed, sloppily written, overly broad speech codes.
[QUOTE=brickbacon]
Excluded middle.
[/quote]
No.
Either you obey a law because it’s the law, or you decide whether or not you’re going to obey it. There is no excluded middle. You cannot kinda-sorta-maybe-partially-obey a law. You either obey, or you don’t. And what you are calling for is blind obedience to any and every law, with the possibility to protest it while you’re already obeying it blindly, because gosh darn it, it’s the law. Obeying a law you don’t agree with, simply because it’s the law, is blind obedience to it. If you automatically obey any law put in front of you, regardless of the law’s individual merits, then you are blinding yourself to the actual laws and blindly obeying them simply because they are laws.
[QUOTE=brickbacon]
Does UGA have a policy against this? Why do you keep bringing this up?
[/quote]
Just pointing out the morally abhorrent position that you support, is all. That you would actually have denied interracial couples the ability to get an education because it was “against the law”, is a vile position.
[QUOTE=brickbacon]
I am supporting the RULE OF LAW.
[/quote]
“Into the cattle cars now, disobeying is against the law. You can protest later.”
“Ms. Parks, I’m afraid you didn’t go to the back of the bus, as is clearly the law. I oppose your actions and you should be punished.”
“Stave and Jerry? Don’t you know that this state has anti-sodomy laws? Take up meditation or masturbation, and I’m afraid you have to be arrested now.”
Your views are morally and aesthetically distasteful and advocate a slavish obedience to whatever any establishment tells you to do. I see no reason to carry on this absurd tangent, and you can feel free to have the last word.
